Nothing less than a Who's Who of musicology, and a What's What of theory, analysis, and musical philosophy.
   --Erich Leinsdorf, New York Times Book Review

A masterly exposition of what Kennan views as the pivotal intellectual issues surrounding postwar musical studies--an exposition that even his critics would readily concede him to be uniquely qualified to undertake. Musicians of all sorts ought to view this as a challenge...to give music the balanced critical attention it deserves.
   --Robert Winter, New York Review of Books

A gracefully polemical survey of "modern ideas and ideologies of music," in the course of which the author touches upon many aspects of music and musical life in the 20th century...Important and consistently stimulating.
   --David Hamilton, Los Angeles Times Book Review

A timely proposal, and one well worth investigating for anyone who is interested in music as a discipline...It represents a useful, and indeed unique, attempt to map out in English the issues of our day.
   --Christopher Wintle, Times Literary Supplement

Joseph Kerman is Professor Emeritus of Music, University of California at Berkeley, and the Charles Eliot Norton Lecturer at Harvard University for 1997-98.